Abortion Lobby Condemns Safety Law at Center of Landmark SCOTUS Case

Pro-choice and pro-life activists demonstrate in front of the the US Supreme Court during
OLIVIER DOULIERY/AFP via Getty Images
Dr. Susan Berry

Abortion lobbying groups took to Twitter this week to once again condemn what they say is the “medically unnecessary” Louisiana safety clinic law case that will be before the Supreme Court Wednesday.

In June Medical Services LLC v. Russo, the Court will consider the case of Louisiana’s 2014 “Unsafe Abortion Protection Act,” requiring abortionists to hold active admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles from the abortion clinic in order to provide continuity of care should a woman need emergency treatment as a result of an abortion.

NARAL, the abortion industry’s political action and advocacy organization, tweeted, “The medically unnecessary law at the center of this case is the SAME as the law at the center of Whole Women’s Health. The Court’s changed since 2016, but the legal reasoning has NOT.”

“There is no freedom without reproductive freedom,” NARAL also declared. “When anti-choice politicians shamelessly enact and implement unnecessary abortion regulations, we have to fight back.”

However, Jeanne Mancini, president of March for Life, said in a statement sent to Breitbart News that the case before the Supreme Court “seeks to ensure that women get the competent and quality care that they deserve.”

She explained:

That hasn’t been the case for years in Louisiana where women have been subject to dangerous, substandard care at abortion businesses with long, documented histories of serious health and safety violations. Women deserve this very basic care and respect. Abortion shouldn’t be given a pass on health regulations and oversight; abortion businesses ought to be held to the same basic standards as all other ambulatory surgical centers in the state.

In its complaint about the Louisiana law, Planned Parenthood tweeted, “Everyone loves someone who has had an abortion — it’s time we’re trusted to decide what’s best for ourselves.”

America’s largest abortion business protested that abortion safety laws are another example of “anti-abortion politicians … chipping away at our fundamental freedoms.”

Similarly, the ACLU tweeted, “Tomorrow we’ll hear a lot about how proponents of Louisiana’s TRAP law ‘just want to protect patient safety,’ but that argument doesn’t hold up.”

Live Action President Lila Rose reacted, however, stating, “Hospital admitting privileges are a standard of medical care in Louisiana, and even surgeons performing wisdom tooth removal are required to have them.”

“The abortion industry’s recalcitrance toward being held to the same standard as legitimate healthcare providers emphasizes the truth: abortion is not healthcare,” Rose added. “The brutal destruction of an innocent human life will never be healthcare.”

In an amicus curiae brief filed on behalf of the Thomas More Society in support of Louisiana, former United States Solicitor General Judge Kenneth Starr also responded to the claim by the abortion lobby and its allies that abortion safety laws create an “undue burden” on women’s access to abortion.

The brief states:

Petitioners’ argument is essentially that it is too difficult to comply with the increased statutory safety standards for medical care; consequently, their patients should accept lower safety standards or have no care at all. The very fact that Petitioners are mounting this argument reveals a motivation adverse to the interests of its future patients, who naturally have an interest in safe medical care. The lackadaisical effort by abortion providers in Louisiana to comply with the requisite safety standards likewise supports this inference. Accordingly, Petitioners’ cause of action asserting the constitutional rights of their anticipated future patients based upon third-party standing should be dismissed.

Family Research Council President Tony Perkins addressed the same safety issue at his Washington Update Tuesday.

“[W]ho wants access to an unsafe abortion? We don’t care if it’s ‘inconvenient’ for these businesses to file the paperwork for admitting privileges,” he wrote. “We care that women don’t get hurt more. And everyone in this country – liberal or conservative – should too. There’s one casualty from every abortion already. There shouldn’t be two.”

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